Injection control of a multipass amplification of a discharge excited XeF (C to A) laser

The laser performance and kinetic properties of the broadband C to A transition of the XeF*-exciplex have been studied under discharge excitation. With a pulsed dye laser as the injection source, amplified output pulses with an energy of up to 4 mJ have been obtained in the wavelength range from 450 to 520 nm. Injection of a well-defined seed pulse in an unstable confocal cavity has been developed into a useful technique for identification of subtle kinetic details of the complicated lasing process in XeF*, such as the role of the competitive narrow-band B to X transition or the influence of the various buffer gases.>